Why Your 30-Minute Course Is Losing to a 60-Second Video
A learner opens their laptop on Monday morning. Before they’ve finished their first cup of coffee, they’re facing dozens of unread emails, a handful of Teams notifications, back-to-back meetings, and a growing list of project deadlines. Somewhere in the middle of all that sits your carefully designed 30-minute eLearning course. Now ask yourself a simple […]
Why One-Size-Fits-All Training Is So Easy to Forget
New research on tailored messages suggests that relevance helps information get into memory—and back out when it matters. New research on tailored messages suggests that relevance helps information get into memory—and back out when it matters. Picture the usual scene. An employee opens a required course called Annual Policy Refresher. The first screen promises a […]
You’ve Got Their Attention. Now What?
You finish the module. You close the tab. You go back to work. And nothing changes. If you’ve been in L&D for more than a week, you know this feeling. The training was solid. The content was relevant. Learners were engaged. And yet. Here’s the thing we don’t talk about enough. Attention and behavior change […]
Your Training Doesn’t Need More Content. It Needs a Better Invitation.
I got a gift after a recent webinar. Not a mug. Not a badge. Not one of those “Thanks for presenting” emails with the energy of a damp paper towel. I got the chat log. And if you have ever led a webinar, workshop, or training session, you know the chat is where the real […]
Training Is Not a Course. It’s a Campaign for Behavior Change.
You know the moment. The mandatory training loads. The title slide appears. The learner opens a second tab. The audio plays into the void until the completion bar fills. Whatever the course was meant to change, that Tuesday afternoon is not moving. That moment is the problem. The course can be sharp. The SME can […]
ATD 2026 Recap: Content Strategy, Writing Skills, and All the Links We Promised
Employees get interrupted 275 times a day. 80% say they don’t have enough time to do their jobs. Focus breaks every two minutes. And yet — we keep building content and hoping people find it, open it, and actually do something different because of it. At ATD 2026, Bianca and I made the case that […]
Your Training Is Sitting on a Shelf. Would Anyone Notice?
Most training does not fail because the content is wrong. It fails because the wrapper is invisible. Same LMS tile.Same “required training” subject line.Same stock photo of a smiling person pointing at a laptop.Same first slide: “Welcome to this course.” To the learner’s brain, it all becomes wallpaper. And wallpaper does not get clicked. The […]
LEARNTEC 2026
Culture by Design: Shaping a Learning Ecosystem That Works for Everyone Presented at LEARNTEC 2026 | Karlsruhe, Germany | May 5–7, 2026 We’re heading to LEARNTEC 2026, Europe’s leading event for digital education, to present Culture by Design: Shaping a Learning Ecosystem That Works for Everyone. LEARNTEC brings together the e-learning community at Messe Karlsruhe […]
Marketing Campaigns Tell Stories. Training Pushes Content.
One approach works with the human brain. The other works against it. We’ve been studying some of the most effective marketing campaigns of the last decade — Airbnb, Spotify, Dove. Different industries. Different budgets. Wildly different goals. But the same underlying move. None of them push information. They pull people into a narrative. That one […]
IDTX Online 2026
From Zero to Hero: Marketing Techniques for Captivating L&D Content Ready to take your L&D content from zero to hero? In this fast-paced session, you’ll discover how marketing-inspired learner persona thinking—paired with the SURE Principle—can dramatically elevate learner engagement and content effectiveness. We’ll begin by unpacking the purpose and power of learner personas: how understanding […]